Search form

Help Save Podcasting!

Help Save Podcasting!

We need your help to save podcasting. EFF is partnering with leading lawyers to bust a key patent being used to threaten podcasters. But we need your help to find prior art and cover the filing fees for a brand new patent busting procedure.

A couple of months ago we wrote that podcasting was under threat from a patent troll. At that time, a patent troll named Personal Audio LLC had sued three podcasters and sent demand letters to a number of others. Since then, Personal Audio has filed two new lawsuits—this time against CBS and NBC. It has also sent additional demand letters to small podcasting operations. We’ve written often in the past about how patent trolls are a drain on innovation, and this latest troll is no exception. Since many podcasters barely make a profit, or simply do it for love, a shakedown from a patent troll threatens to shut down their program.

As with so many patent troll cases, the troll is asking for money despite having contributed nothing to the industry. By its own admission, Personal Audio tried and failed at its attempt to make an audio player. Having failed at actually making something, it became a shell company that does nothing but sue on its patents. And now it wants a handout from those who worked hard to create popular podcasts.

We’d like to enlist your help to fight this troll. One way to defeat a troll is to prove—either in court or at the patent office—that the claimed invention was not new (or was obvious). In other words, show that the patent applicant didn’t really invent anything. To do this, we need to find publications from before October 2, 1996 that disclose similar or identical ideas (this also known as prior art). The best prior art will include publications describing early versions of podcasting or any other kind of episode distribution over the Internet.

EFF is partnering with the Harvard’s Cyberlaw Clinic to investigate a challenge to this patent at the patent office. The most likely procedure will involve a new legal tool called the “Inter partes review” introduced by the America Invents Act. If we are successful in this process, the patent gets invalidated and Personal Audio would be unable to assert it against anybody.

For us to get started, we need your help—the filing fees charged by the US Patent and Trademark Office for this kind of high-impact challenge are relatively steep and there’s no way around them, even for an advocacy non-profit like EFF. If you join us in fighting to save podcasting, we’ll be able to bring a robust case straight to the US Patent and Trademark Office to stop Personal Audio from doing any more damage to online broadcasters.

We’ve posted a detailed call for prior art at Ask Patents. That includes the details about the patent claim being asserted and some examples of prior art we have already located. Please visit that page and review it carefully. If you know of any prior art, submit it there (or send it via email to podcasting@eff.org). If you think you might be able to find prior art, search for it. Since all of your submissions will be public, they can also be used by others who are fighting back against Personal Audio in court. And please forward this message far and wide. The more people that search, the more art we will find.

It is not easy to fight patent trolls, but with your help, we can defeat this patent and save podcasting.

Related Updates

Anuwave’s Suit Against Coinbase Demonstrates a Longstanding Flaw in the Patent System This month’s Stupid Patent of the Month deals with SMS (short messaging service), a technology that goes back to the mid-1980s. Modern-day SMS messages, typically bundled with mobile phone services, have been around since 1992, but...

When it comes to politics, in-person meetings make a huge difference. Just a few questions from constituents during town halls can show a representative or senator which issues are resonating with the residents of their district or state. Even if you’ve never met an elected representative before, showing up IRL...

A Senate subcommittee recently concluded three days of testimony about a proposed patent bill that, we have explained, would be a terrible idea. Proponents of the bill keep saying that Section 101 of U.S. patent law, which bars patents on things like abstract ideas and laws of nature, needs...

Washington D.C.—EFF Staff Attorney Alex Moss will tell U.S. lawmakers today that proposed changes to Section 101 of the U.S. Patent Act—the section that defines, and limits, what can get a patent—will upend years of case law that ensures only true inventions, not basic practices or rudimentary ideas, should...

Recently, we reported on the problems with a proposal from Senators Coons and Tillis to rewrite Section 101 of the Patent Act. Now, those senators have released a draft bill of changes they want to make. It’s not any better. Section 101 prevents monopolies on basic research tools...

Patent owners shouldn’t be allowed to keep basic facts about their patents secret—especially when they initiate litigation in courts, which are presumptively open to the public. Uniloc is one of the worst examples of such a company: it doesn’t make any products, but sues lots of others that do. Then...

This is one of many patent cases filed by Uniloc--one of the most active patent trolls in the world that filed more than 170 lawsuits in a year. Since then, various Uniloc entities have filed hundreds of patent suits, including this one against Apple in the Northern District of...

Last month, we asked EFF supporters to help save Alice v. CLS Bank, the 2014 Supreme Court decision that has helped stem the tide of stupid software patents and abusive patent litigation. The Patent Office received hundreds of comments from you, telling it to do the right thing and apply...

What if we allowed some people to patent the law and then demand money from the rest of us just for following it? As anyone with a basic understanding of democratic principles can see, that is a terrible idea. In a democracy, elected representatives write laws that apply to everyone...